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Insight may be understood as a deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing. I would like us to consider ‘insight’ as ‘inward sight’ – a careful examination of ourselves. If we can accept it, the world is a mirror requiring us to examine ourselves as much as the world before us. If we are paying attention, we notice it when we get that feeling in our spirit that either something is wrong or something was done well. After experiencing the grinding struggles of Covid over the past two years, I imagine that you, like me, fantasized that we are very close to finally coming out the other end – we may well be. Then BOOM! We are confronted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, daily bringing images that feel like they belong to newsreels from our grandparent’s generation. Has the world spun out of control again? It feels like a dark cloud is passing overhead – – again. I suggest that we all take a breath. Breath is centering. Where there is breath, there is life. It gives us a pause to stop and rebalance ourselves.
In trying to understand the intentions of others and our own internal thoughts, we are ruled by two great emotions – Love and Fear. Love accepts. Love nurtures. Love lifts. Love embraces. Its opposite is fear. Fear denigrates. Fear harms. Fear rejects. They vibrate in opposite ways. You can feel it when you are in their presence – Love and Fear.
Love requires a higher emotional vibration. It requires us to consider others beyond and outside of ourselves – to wish, bless and bestow on others the highest good. But, in good colloquial southern English, It ain’t always easy!
Fear is a base emotion of the lowest frequency. The worst fear is ‘Fear of not enough .’It is a mighty beast. It demands that you tear someone down or hold them back because maybe, just maybe, they will have something you won’t or achieve something that isn’t meant for you (notice I didn’t say ‘can’t achieve’). I was recently confronted with this very lesson.
Someone whom I think the world of received a job I once had. Fear of not enough reared its ugly head for a moment until I looked myself in the mirror and spoke the truth to myself that they were destined for this moment. I am not rejected. I am where I am supposed to be and meant for this journey – the one my soul needs to grow. Unfortunately, fear causes us to act in ways that diminish ourselves out of our own lessened sense of worth. It makes us say inside, ‘I don’t deserve good things, happiness, abundance…” Each day, we have the opportunity to choose halos or horns. It requires us to be vigilant observers of our thoughts and actions….we are ALL works in progress. So, I suggest the next time we feel something that challenges us, we ask ourselves a simple question, “What is this really about?” Stop. Take a breath. Do a deep dive. Take your time. Then, determine for yourself, your fellow man, and the Universe to offer the highest vibration and do the greatest good.
“Do the best you can until you know better. When you know better, do better.”
~ Maya Angelou
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
Jonathan Cain is a native of Florence, Alabama, and has been the current Curator for the Tennessee Valley Museum of Art located in Tuscumbia, AL, since January 2020. He functioned in that role previously for several years before leaving to pursue a career in education. He holds an undergraduate degree in graphic design from the University of North Alabama and graduate degrees from both the University of Mississippi (MFA – Sculpture) and the University of North Alabama (MA – Clinical Mental Health). He is an eclectic artist who likes to pursue many different media.
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